Saturday, September 22, 2012

So apparently Bud Selig has passed some sort of addendum to the rules so that people whose last names start with a "C" and were born on August 11, 1984 are ineligible for the batting title. This is presumably to avoid the embarrassment of the taboo guy finishing first in batting average, although it does it by generating yet another story about how the taboo guy is going to finish first in batting average.

I suppose it's not quite the same thing as not counting Rose as the hits leader or Bonds as the HR leader or something like that. The Melkman, as you all probably know, finished up one PA short; the rules in that case call for outs to be added to get him up to the line, and Selig's fix is to say you can't do that in this case.

Of course, no one really cares who MLB considers the "batting" champ. Presumably baseball-reference will list it properly, and at any rate however anyone wants to count it Melky Cabrerra will have posted a .346 BA in 501 PAs this season. He won't "really" have had 502 PAs either way.

The solution, of course, is pure Selig -- an ad hoc fix to something that happened to come to his attention and which he decided was a problem.

What's really amazing is how resilient baseball is in the face of all of it. Baseball is, alas, worse off, but hardly ruined...well, I should say, I guess, that we baseball fans are worse off, but the game itself -- and I'm talking about the MLB version of it -- remains wildly, out-of-control popular. And to Selig's credit, he really did learn his lesson from the 1994-1995 fiasco, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for the people who run the NHL, apparently. I don't really know how to weigh the balance between losing the end of 1994 vs. labor peace since, but the upside of that is probably a bigger deal than all the stupid format changes and getting rid of the league offices and switching teams from one league to another and....blech. I can't stand him.

Anyway, the Giants magic number is down to two, so what am I going to be crabby about? As long as I don't think about Bud Selig, I'm pretty much fine.

AP (via ESPN): Cabrera was disqualified from the NL batting honor at his own request when Major League Baseball and the players' association agreed Friday to a one-season-only change in the rule

ABC: Melky Cabrera asked to be disqualified, and his request was agreed to Friday.

LA Times/Phil Rogers: San Francisco Giants' suspended outfielder Melky Cabrera's decision to disqualify himself from the batting title was impressive.

CBS Sports: The move came at Cabrera's request, as he came to an agreement with Major League Baseball and MLB Players Association officials to remove himself from consideration.

Yahoo/Big League Stew: The ruling came one day after commissioner Bud Selig said he was not inclined to close a loophole that would have allowed Cabrera to add one hitless at-bat to reach the minimum 502 plate appearances necessary to qualify for the title at .346. But a contrite Cabrera apparently made the request to not enact Rule 10.22(a)

But isn't it amazing how the Giants have jelled as a team without their formerly biggest bat? It looks like Scutaro is another genius acquisition, even if accidental genius. It's really fun to watch them play.

Baseball has not made final disposition of the cheaters, but that doesn't mean they should be honored in any way, individually or collectively. They can remain in limbo, like the US Senate's budget process.

The guy cheated and got nailed. It's just as likely that baseball could choose to wipe out all of that guy's numbers as honor them.

No sense whining over cheaters, especially the ones stupid enough to get caught cheating, violating contracts and jeopardizing their franchise.

The power of MLB's decrees in limited these days by Dave Smith (Retrosheet) and Sean Forman (baaseball-reference.com)

MLB's position is that Ty Cobb won the AL batting title in 1910. Go to baseball-reference and check and you'll find that Nap Lajoie is listed as having the highest batting average.

If the Giants play 161 or fewer regular season games this year I flat guarantee that Sean will list Cabrera as having the highest batting average.

What he'll do if they play 162 (or more) is not yet clear. He lists Tony Gwynn as the 1996 NL batting average champion. He may make a special exception because Cabrera is being excluded by his own request. Far more likely though he'll just list Cabrera with the ** that goes with Gwynn's 1996.

For the record, Sean has announced how he proposes to handle this (in a post at bb-ref)

The money quote as it were.

"To handle this, we’ve decided to list ERA Leaders and BA leaders as they currently are in the leaderboard pages. These will be updated and change as new data becomes available and we will be apolitical as much as possible in how we draw these leaderboards. This is essentially the status quo."

In other word, if the Giants play 162 games Cabrera gets listed as the BA champion with a ** (like Gwynn in 1996), 161 or fewer he just gets listed as having the highest BA.

For the record, Sean has announced how he proposes to handle this (in a post at bb-ref)

The money quote as it were.

"To handle this, we’ve decided to list ERA Leaders and BA leaders as they currently are in the leaderboard pages. These will be updated and change as new data becomes available and we will be apolitical as much as possible in how we draw these leaderboards. This is essentially the status quo."

In other word, if the Giants play 162 games Cabrera gets listed as the BA champion with a ** (like Gwynn in 1996), 161 or fewer he just gets listed as having the highest BA.

"In addition, though, we will add as awards the Batting Champion and Pitching Champion which will represent the player recognized at the end of the year as the top hitter and top pitcher. And we will strive to denote on each when the winners of the two do not match up.

This way folks can see who was best on the field and who was recognized as such at the time when the season ended."

Not too different from the way the Stats Handbook handled the 1910 Controvery. Listing Lajoie as having the highest BA and Cobb as having won the BA title.

This is an awfully weak post. "Apparently Bud Selig has passed some sort of addendum to the rules so that people whose last names start with a "C" and were born on August 11, 1984 are ineligible for the batting title." Really?? Do you really think those were the operative criteria?? Obviously not.

Look, MLB should have had a rule in place to cover this eventuality. The fact that they didn't, and that they post-hoc implemented the exact rule that they probably would have come up with in the first place, hardly seems to be the proper subject for outrage. Next thing you know, you will be denouncing Selig for meeting with a pirate.

PS: It doesnt help Cabrera's case that he is hitting 60 points over his lifetime average. And, frankly, awarding him the batting title will encourage cheating, will it not?

1. If it's such a big issues that it requires a rule change, one would expect that it would have already been changed by now. The fact that it's being changed ad hoc at the last minute to conform the results of the season to Selig's desire indicates that it's not a real problem.

2. As far as I've read, this is NOT a permanent rule change; this new rule will only count this way for this one instance, which again would indicate that it's merely being changed because Selig finds this embarrassing.

If they had changed it permanently at least they would have saved a little more face... but this is more about punishing one player than about seeking greater fairness for all. I can guarantee that if this ever came up again, a player without the drug revelations would have the old rule count for them.

Right, it's an ad hoc one-time rule. Indeed, since it only covers the extra PA, people have pointed out that if the Giants have a rainout that isn't made up then he'll qualify after all (because the rule is PAs/team games).

The reporting I've seen says that Melky called his agent within hours of the story that MLB would let him count, so I'm inclined to put this on Melky. My guess is that his agent's read f the situation is that McGwire, while not getting HOF votes, is still welcome in baseball, whereas Bonds is a pariah and Braun is damaged goods. So, with Melky being a free agent, he figured an apology might actually be worth a few million bucks.

Plus, I think there might actually be some truth behind Mwlky's quote about not wanting to win with an asterisk. If he didn't quit, he'd be "that guy who cheated his way to the batting title." that's what his kids friends would say. Now, he's just another guy who got caught doing PEDs during an era when a lot of people got caught. We remember the Bondses and McGwires and Brauns and Clemenses....we don't remember the other 150ish in the Mitchell Report. Better to be anonymous than be hated.

Since the Giants wouldn't have won all those games without him, I submit they should renounce their division title and turn it over to the second place Dodgers. No matter that the Dodgers at the moment can't hit their way out of a paper bag, even one meant only for sack lunch.

Why, yes, I am a Dodgers fan. Have been for 50 years. Is that pertinent? ;)